My house is made of wood, glass and stone. It is also made of software.

If you come to visit, you’ll probably be surprised when you come in. Someone will give you an electronic PIN to wear. This PIN tells the house who and where you are. The house uses this information to give you what you need. When it’s dark outside, the PIN turns on the lights nearest you, and then turns them off as you walk away from them. Music moves with you too. If the house knows your favorite music, it plays it. The music seems to be everywhere, but in fact other people in the house hear different music or no music. If you get a telephone call, only the nearest telephone rings.

Of course, you are also able to tell the house if you want something. There is a home control console (控制台), a small machine that turns things on and off around you, which is in fact a computer.

The PIN and the console are new ideas, but they are in fact like many things we have today. If you want to go to a movie, you need a ticket. If I give you my car keys, you can use my car. The car works for you because you have the keys. My house works for you because you wear the PIN or hold the console.

I believe that several years from now on, most new homes will have the systems that I’ve put in my house. The systems will probably be even bigger and better than the ones I’ve put in today.

Keller Rinaudo Cliffton’s first company, Romotive, made toy cars that became robots by fixing a smartphone on top. But Rinaudo Clifton soon realized that he didn’t want to just make toys—he wanted to find ways to solve important problems.

He found what he was looking for on a visit to a health institute (机构) in Tanzania. There he saw that they had developed a system allowing health workers to make emergency requests for medicine and vaccines (疫苗), but had no effective way to deliver them. So in 2014, Romotive became Zipline, and started designing and building delivery drones (无人机) called Zips. By 2016, the company began deliveries in Rwanda, starting with just one hospital, but growing to 20 within a year.

Zipline now also operates in other African countries like Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria and Ivory Coast, as well as parts of the US and Japan. Now as the world’s largest commercial drone delivery system, it says it has made more than 700,000 deliveries, carrying everything from vaccines and medical things to hot food and phone chargers. Zipline says its centralized storage system and fast deliveries result in less waste when delivering blood products, and people miss fewer vaccines in places where Zipline operates.

Its first drone, the Platform 1 Zip, looks like a small airplane that can carry a little under 2 kilograms, going as far as almost 100 kilometers away at speeds of around 100 kilometers per hour. Things are dropped from about 20-25 meters above the ground.

The company’s new Platform 2 Zip, which has gone through the research and development periods and is currently being tested out, is promised to be ready for customer flights by 2025, can carry about twice as much as the Platform 1.

The company says that Platform 2 Zip can deliver to much more precise (精确的) locations up to seven times as fast as a car, completing 16-kilometer deliveries in about 10 minutes. And by 2026, it expects to run more flights each year than most major US airlines.